Expert advice on cybersecurity, cybersafety and cybercrime. Using real incidents, I explain why cyber risks occur, what form they take, and how they affect cybercitizens as individuals, employees, citizens and parents. Opinions expressed in this blog represent my personal views

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Thursday, January 28, 2016

26th January,
the Indian Republic Day, was targeted by ISIS operatives to stage multiple
terror strikes designed to cause terror and panic in major Indian cities. The
Indian intelligence and police agencies over the last few weeks successfully
nabbed ISIS operatives foiling major terror plots in the run up to the 26th.

With tensions
running high, and the anti-terror squads under full alert, a mentally disturbed
man swatted airport and railway helpdesks claiming that bombs would go off on
Mumbai-bound flights, and cars stuffed with explosives would blow up at the
airports and the Pune Railway Station.
Wikipedia describes swatting as an act of deceiving an emergency service
(via such means as hoaxing an emergency services dispatcher) into dispatching
an emergency response based on the false report of an ongoing critical
incident.

The man who was
later apprehended had made four calls made over two days to airports and
railway stations claiming that there was a car packed in the airport vicinity
loaded with explosives or that a person onboard a flight was carrying a bomb in
his hand luggage. This ensured that over 200 policemen were diverted from
deterring real terrorists to comb these routes and flights. One flight was
delayed and another diverted mid-air to the nearest airport for an
anti-sabotage check.

While swatting
is relatively new in India, it is quite common in the US. Swatting may occur
for pranks, online harassment or even for revenge. Recently Skype introduced a
patch which protected the privacy of a callers IP address, a flaw which could
be exploited to launch swat teams on rival gamers using IP geolocation.

Such acts are akin to
terrorismand punishable as a crime
because ofits potential to cause
disruption, waste the time of emergency services, divert attention from real
emergencies and possibly cause injuries and psychological harm to persons
targeted. Cybercitizens are advised not to make prank calls for whatever
reasons as the joke may turn into a long ugly jail term

Friday, January 22, 2016

Of current
global concern is the ease at which terror organizations are able to use social
media to spread their ideology and coerce young people living in developed countries
to leave all and fight wars in hostile lands. Their success stems from their
ability to spin doctor content and communicate in a way that is alluring to
young people. The outcome is brainwashed
young people who willing give up their lives, blowing themselves up in crowded
areas killing innocent people.

As the death
toll mounts so does the pressure on social media companies or online platforms
which have given a voice to these terror organization. I do not think that it
is difficult to draw a line between free speech and hateful ideology, but every
action to sanitize platforms with millions of uploads every minute is bound to
cost. These platforms got away through regulations that did not make them
liable for content, only to remove it. Which they made harder to do, as they decided
to only remove content that violate something obvious like pornography but
others which were more specific like defamation, sullying reputation, hate
speech was subject to a court order.

Individuals suffered
because they had little recourse in erasing sullied reputations online and many
countries with a different cultural ideologies had to impose great Internet
walls to block content that affected their beliefs.

While it
remained a matter of individuals and their sufferings, it scant mattered to the
social media companies but now when lives are being lost, and it is a matter of
huge public interest; they are under tremendous pressure to get their act right
and reduce the ability of these groups from using this platform while still
maintaining the privacy of individual users.

I was surprised
to see a Davos new headline which stated that Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg: 'likes' can help stop Isis
recruiters, was recommending cybercitizens to spread positive messages
(counter propaganda) on terror communication, thus drowning out the hate
chorus. Will that work, or is it an attempt by social networking companies to resist change. Should not
counter propaganda of any sort be organized!

Liking or
commenting on such sites brings you in the eye of law enforcement, may sully
your reputation and could also make you a target. Rather than people, a bot
could do the same work, if the method is effective.

Instead social
media companies should devise technical means to identify and remove harmful
content, sites, messages and any other form of small social communication.
Identifying patterns of indoctrination through algorithms may not be a very
difficult task as the initial indoctrination, I would expect is in plain
speech.

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About Me

Security author and passionate blogger @LuciusonSecurity writing on risks that affect Internet users such as cyber crime, defamation, impersonation, privacy and security. Working hard to reduce cyber risks to some of the world's largest businesses. Find me on Twitter @luciuslobo or Linkedin at http://in.linkedin.com/in/luciuslobo